My Reading Year 2017

The talent of current short story writers, especially within the horror, fantasy and science fiction genres, is immense, making choosing my favourite short stories of the year very difficult. In the end, out of the 241 stories I read, I chose those that wowed, that I thought award-worthy, and which scored 8½ or above on my unscientific scale. I also read 9 novellas and 36 novels (hope to improve on that figure next year).

Here are my favourites:

NOVELLAS
The Booking - Ramsey Campbell
The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter
Skyshine (or Death by Scotland) - Carole Johnstone
Naming the Bones - Laura Mauro
Of Sorrow & Such - Angela Slatter

NOVELS
The Time Keeper - Mitch Albom
Blacklands - Belinda Bauer
The Beautiful Dead - Belinda Bauer
Devil in Red (unpublished) - Simon Bestwick
The Manchunian Candidate (unpublished) - Simon Bestwick
The Girls - Emma Cline
The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins
The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson
We Have Always Lived in the Castle -Shirley Jackson
Hater - David Moody
A Monster Calls - Patrick Ness

SHORT STORIES 
Into Gold - Krista Ahlberg (Red Rose Review)
Mental Diplopia - Julianna Baggott (Tor)
The Misericord - AK Benedict (Black Shuck Books - Green & Pleasant Land)
Breakwater - Simon Bestwick
Horn of the Hunter - Simon Bestwick (The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories)
The Library of Lost Things - Matthew Bright (Tor)
Seven Minutes in Heaven - Nadia Bulkin (Nightmare)
The Lily Rose - Emily B Cataneo (The Dark)
The Swans - Ray Cluley (Black Static)
Is-And - Claire Dean (Dead Letters)
The Beautiful Thing We Become - Kristi DeMeester (The Dark)
Dogsbody - Malcolm Devlin (Black Static)
Perspective - Steven J Dines (Black Static)
Room Tone - Brian Evenson (The Masters Review)
Whipping the Dead - Jen Finelli (Pantheon)
En La Case de Fantasmas - Brian Holguin (Shimmer)
A Nest of Ghosts, A House of Birds - Kat Howard (Uncanny)
The Lottery - Shirley Jackson
Flower Garden - Shirley Jackson
Songs to help you cope when your mom won't stop haunting you and your friends - Gwendolyn Kiste (Black Static)
Buyers Remorse - Andrew Lane (Dead Letters)
Signal - John Lanchester (The New Yorker)
Flotsam - Tim Lebbon (The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories)
Shell Baby - VH Leslie (Shadows & Tall Trees)
The Mysteries - Livia Llewellyn (The Dark)
The Spook School - Nick Mamatas (Nightmare)
Over to You - Michael Marshall Smith (Dead Letters)
Strange as Angels - Laura Mauro (Black Shuck Books - Green & Pleasant Land)
Sun Dogs - Laura Mauro (Shadows & Tall Trees)
Will you Accept these Flowers From Me? - Ralph Robert Moore (Black Static)
In the Days of our Lives - Adam Nevill (Dead Letters)
Rapture of the Deep - Thana Niveau (Unquiet Waters)
The Curtain - Thana Niveau (The Dark)
The Reflection - Thana Niveau (Unquiet Waters)
Flowers of the Sea - Reggie Oliver
The Veils - Ian Rogers (The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories)
Monster Girls Don't Cry - A Merc Rustad (Uncanny)
Shallaballah - Mark Samuels (Nightmares: A Decade of Modern Horror)
Pearls - Priya Sharma (Nightmare)
Lump in your Throat - Robert Shearman (The 2nd Spectral Book of Horror Stories)
Things Crumble, Things Break - Nate Southard (Nightmare)
Every Black Tree - Natalia Theodoridou (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
A Home in the Sky - Lisa Tuttle (Black Static)
Painter of Stars - Wang Yan & Translated by Andy Dudak (Clarkesworld)